I wanted this to be similar to my ribbon winner (which was also a roman number) . . .
On the ribbon winner, I took my time and shot it over the course of a couple of evenings.
On this one, I really, really rushed it. You can't even begin to imagine how much I rushed it. The sunset on that particular day was something like 6:57 pm. This was the day of the submission deadline--and remember, out here in California, the deadline is 9:00 pm.
So, on my way home from work, I bought the wooden numbers at around 6:15 pm. I got home, changed into my beach clothes and then hammered the two numbers into a small board. I didn't paint them black like I did previously (not enough time). By the time I left my house it was 6:40 pm. I parked my car at the beach at 6:45, ran across the sand to the edge of the water, turned on my GPS photo geotagging receiver, placed my subject on a mound of sand, set up my tripod so that my camera was a few inches above the sand, dialed "M" on the camera, set all the settings, and began shooting at 6:53, trying out various angles and sun placement. That's the reason I had the camera so low--to get the sun inside the "X".
It wasn't until I got home (around 7:30 pm) and transferred the image to my computer that I realized that this was Basic Editing! I knew I had a ship visible offshore in the background, but thought I could digitally remove it. Oh well. :-(
I proceeded to transfer my GPS location settings to each RAW capture (using the sidecar XMP files). I did some minor ACR RAW tweaks and converted to TIFF, then used CS3 to crop and save it to JPG. I uploaded my first version at 8:02. There were only 58 minutes left and if I took too much time to post-process, I at least wanted to get something submitted. Now that I had something submitted, I was starved, so I had a bite to eat and then began my formal post-processing. I finally finished and uploaded my final version at around 8:55 or so. Whew!
By the way, for those that commented on the non-level appearance of the composition, trust me, it is level. The tops of the numbers are level, but the horizon appears a bit slanted 1) because I captured the image at an angle to the shore, 2) because of the sand is not completely level in the background (a slight incline), and 3) the "mountain" in the background is actually the Palos Verdes peninsula which is about 500-600 feet in elevation (125-185 m). I think the combination of those factors make it appear a bit unlevel.
I'm surprised no one commented on the washed-out sun. I didn't notice this until I was post-processing, and really don't like it at all.
Also, KarenNfld, ttreit, and sekarmalathy--you guys have a great memory! ...by noticing that it was probably me that submitted that entry.
purifier: Yes, it is "nine" in another language...vulcan!
tanguera: This is in Sunset Beach, California (Orange County)
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Nicely done. Soooo close to top ten. I see how it looks kind of tilted at the bottom but ins't at the top. That's a weird illusion. Sweet shot though. especially for a time crunch.
Interesting silhouette. Great, transitioning and complimenting complementing colors in your sunset. I think that I'd like to see it even a bit more offset in the crop. 5.
Seems I've seen something like this before. Whatever is to the right of the "I" is really distracting, if that thing wasn't there it'd be a lot stronger shot I think. It also seems like it needs a bit of clockwise rotation. I like the gradiated colors of the sky.
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